The Showcase (The Price Is Right)
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The Showcase is the major prize round on the game show The Price Is Right. The two winners of the Showcase Showdowns in each episode compete against each other in the Showcase; in the show's original half-hour format, the two on-stage contestants with the most winnings advanced to the Showcase. The two prize packages each typically involve three prizes or prize packages usually connected by a common theme or a story; they are normally worth between $12,000 and $40,000, although they occasionally exceed this range (particularly on "special episodes"), with the biggest daytime showcase worth over $90,000. Prime time specials in recent years have offered showcases worth $100,000 or more.
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[edit] Game Play
One showcase is shown, and the contestant with the greater winnings coming into the Showcase round has the option to either place a bid on the showcase or pass it to their opponent who won the lesser amount of the two, forcing them to bid on it. After the bid is placed, the second showcase is presented and bid upon by the remaining contestant. The contestant who has bid nearer to the price of their own showcase without going over wins their showcase. An overbid cannot win, and if both contestants overbid, nobody wins. This is usually called a "double overbid".
On the earliest episodes, in the case of a double overbid, a horn would sound, and the contestants would bid again until at least one of them was not over. This rule lasted, at most, through the first week of daytime shows and the first five nighttime shows; according to producer Roger Dobkowitz, it was discarded after the calculators used to determine the players' differences got "all screwed up" while computing a second set of bids on an early nighttime program (probably the third episode, based on notes in his own stats), which led to the episode being thrown out when no one on the staff could figure out how to fix them.
Beginning in the spring of 1974, if the winner bid less than $100 below the actual price of their own showcase, the contestant won both showcases. To reflect inflation, the margin was raised to $250 or less beginning with Season 27 in 1998. If the two contestants are exactly the same distance from the actual prices without going over (a tie), each wins their own showcase; this has happened once in show's history, on a nighttime version. If there is a tie where the differences are within the "double showcase" range, both contestants would win both showcases; this has never happened, although there was an episode in 1975 in which the contestants' differences were $30 and $29. Beginning in prime time specials in season 36, to accommodate the higher value of Showcases presented in prime time specials (one is usually over $80,000), a $500 (originally $1,000 in the first six taped specials) range has been implemented; additionally, the primetime rules were altered to include a $1,000,000 bonus with a double showcase win.
As some contestants often do in the One Bid round, contestants have also bid $1 on their showcase hoping that the other contestant has overbid. This is rare and is generally only used if the other contestant's overbid is very obvious.
It is believed that there has been only one perfect bid in the Showcase in the history of The Price Is Right, occurring on the 1970s nighttime run hosted by Dennis James; the podium purportedly displayed "00000". Because there was no Double Showcase rule on the nighttime syndicated version, the contestant only won their own showcase. A perfect bid has never occurred on the daytime show; the closest anyone has bid to their showcase is $2.
The showcases are presented in several ways. In some cases, the announcer simply lists off the prizes, particularly for lower-priced showcases. However, the vast majority of showcases have a theme of some sort. Many of these themes are recurring, such as trips Around the World, prizes for Every Room in the House, prizes delivered to the Train Depot and Port O'Price, and The Price Is Right Department Store, where prizes are presented in an elevator setting. Primetime series will often feature closely related showcase themes, such as Urban vs. Rural or High-Tech vs. Low-Tech, and this concept has carried over to the daytime show. Until the mid-1990's, the announcer would often participate in the showcases along with the models.
The show's models will often present showcase prizes as part of a skit, usually (but not always) in nonspeaking roles with the announcer narrating. In the event that the skit required a male participant (which is rare), announcers Johnny Olson and Rod Roddy would appear on camera to fill the role; since Roddy's death, any male roles have been filled by producer Roger Dobkowitz.
[edit] The New Price Is Right
On the syndicated nighttime version hosted by Doug Davidson, the Showcase was played in a different manner, as there was only one contestant at the end of each episode. The contestant would be shown the prizes for their showcase. After that, the round took on the format of the pricing game Range Game. The contestant would then randomly select a length for a "range finder" that was built for this series. Each length came in at increments of $1,000 and ranged from $4,000 to $10,000; the board covered a length of $60,000 ($10,000 to $70,000). The range finder was then started up the scale, with the contestant pulling a lever when they thought it was covering the showcase value. If the contestant was correct they won the showcase.
[edit] Foreign versions
While many other versions of the showcase game follow the same rules as the US (often without a double showcase rule), some have different changes to their format:
On the UK Price is Right, during the Bruce Forsyth and Joe Pasquale versions on ITV, the player hits a plunger to stop a flashing light from going all over the board, locking in a range between £1,000 and £5,000 on the Bruce Forsyth version or £500 and £3,000 which increased to £4,000 on the Joe Pasquale version. The player is given only one showcase to bid on, and if the bid falls into the range without going over, the player wins the showcase (i.e., if a player has a range of £3,000 and bids £22,000, and the showcase's price was £24,873, the player would win). This format has since carried over to other European versions such as Cash en Carlo in the Netherlands, O Preço Certo in Portugal, and Mitä Maksaa in Finland. The Bob Warman version on Sky One also used this format, but the player chose their range at random from nine cards with values between £250 and £1,000. This was also used on another Dutch version of TPiR called Prijzenslag. The Leslie Crowther version on ITV used the same format as the United States. The first season also had a rule stating that the showcase winner could not take home the big prize (usually a car) if the guess wasn't within 10% of the total.
El Precio Justo in Spain and Le Juste Prix in France used a cross between the US Showcase and the UK Showcase. The basic rules of the US version were implemented, but the two contestants bid on the same showcase, and a player's bid had to be within a certain range under the price in order for him to be able to win; the Top Winner would select this range from a video wall, as was done in the UK. The current Spanish version with Juan y Medio also uses this variation.
For most of the run of Italy's OK, il Prezzo è Giusto, it used the same Showcase format as the US version; however, for the final two seasons, the show adopted the British version of the Showcase. Since only one person could participate in this version of the Showcase, the winners of the two Showcase Showdowns would each take a single spin on the Big Wheel, with the wheel starting each spin on 100; the player whose spin landed on the higher number advanced to the Showcase.
Australia's Price is Right in 1973 used the same rules as the US version (at the time). However, when the show returned in 1981 on the Seven Network with Ian Turpie as host, the format changed drastically. Here, the top two winners were given one showcase and a $100 range to work with (i.e., if the showcase was worth $32,487, the range was $32,400-$32,500). With game play similar to the retired American pricing game Double Bullseye, the two players alternated back and forth guessing prices until one got the correct price. That player then arranged the items (seven, later eight) in the showcase in correct order, from cheapest to most expensive (usually a car). If all the items were in correct order, the player won the showcase. This format later carried over to Larry Emdur's two versions on the Nine Network and another version with Ian Turpie that aired in 1989 on the Ten Network.
Starting late in the 2003-2005 Australian run, the Showcase was modified to the Mega Showcase, which was always worth over $500,000 and included a condominium on Australia's Sun Coast. In an attempt to counter Deal or No Deal, which aired opposite The Price Is Right on the Seven Network, the Mega Showcase involved cash buyouts at various points that the contestant could take if he believed he was not going to win. Near the end of the run, the Mega Showcase was replaced with the Monster Showcase, which eliminated the condominium and added a cash jackpot to the trunk of the always-offered Alfa Romeo automobile; the combined prices of these two final prizes were displayed on the price board from the beginning of the round. A version in the Philippines is the only other version of The Price is Right to use this format.
Germany's Der Preis Ist Heiss was only slightly different from the US (more similar to the UK's format), in which the two Showcase Showdown winners (or two Pricing Game winners, this version ran only 30 minutes per episode) only bid on one showcase and their bids had to come within DM5,000 to win it. On the Gameshow Marathon special in 2007, the range became €1,000.
The French-Canadian version, Miséz Juste, did have its showcase format similar to the U.S. version, only there was no Double Showcase rule, and contestants played the round from the Contestant's Row podiums.
Originally, Mexico's Atínale al Precio did not have a Double Showcase rule, but starting with season 2, they adapted the rule-- a contestant had to be within MX$100 to win both.
[edit] Biggest winners
- On January 13, 1992, Danielle Torres became the biggest winner at the time with $88,865 in prizes, including a Lincoln Continental in 3 Strikes and a Corvette in the Showcase. She would hold this record for the next 12 years.
- On the ceremonial 6,000th episode on March 1, 2004, Amy Rempel won $97,130 in prizes, including a Ford Thunderbird Roadster in Lucky $even and a Cadillac Deville in the Showcase.
- On January 12, 2005, Keisha Cloird became a double showcase winner with a difference of exactly $250, winning a total of $90,153, including a Pontiac Sunfire in One Away and a Chrysler 300 and a Chrysler Sebring Convertible in her showcase.
- On September 18, 2006, the first episode of the show's 35th season, Vickyann Sadowski won her pricing game plus both showcases to become the daytime show's current biggest winner. Her winnings included three cars: a Dodge Caravan won in Push Over, a Dodge Viper in her showcase and a Saturn Sky Roadster in the other showcase. Her grand total for the show was $147,517. The price of her showcase was large enough that even if she hadn't won both showcases, Vickyann still would have broken the previous winnings record.
- On the Million Dollar Spectacular that aired February 22, 2008, Adam Rose came within $880 of his $84,355 Showcase, winning that and the other showcase worth $45,554. For winning both showcases, Rose also won a $1,000,000 bonus, bringing his total to $1,153,908. Included in his winnings was $20,000 won in Grand Game and a treadmill won in Contestants' Row. Rose's win, and a second contestant's win in the same set of tapings, led to officials changing the range from $1,000 to $500 because of insurance concerns after three players hit the million-dollar bonus in the first session of six.
- Outside of the U.S., the biggest showcase win occurred in Australia in 2005. Joanne Severdio won AU$664,667 (US$620,489), including a condo, Alfa Romeo, and a motorcycle playing Line 'em Up, making her the biggest winner on any Australian version of the show.
- On the Million Dollar Spectacular that aired May 28, 2008, Michael Haynes came within $489 of his showcase, winning both showcases and $1,000,000, bringing his total to $1,167,062. (However, had the $500 range been used for this episode, he still would have won both showcases and the $1,000,000.)
